Local officials were indifferent to reforming the fruit market.

Evidence

The transition process was not a straightforward one. The question of licenses remains irksome, and older players are nostalgic for the time, as one source said, “when we were few, we were friends, there was respect, and the interests of friends were well protected” and “the margins of profit were as high as 20 percent.” Local authorities can take none of the credit for the evolution of the market. “The contacts which our group had with the present mayor” and other officials, the commission concluded in 1969, “gave us the impression, increasingly so, of lack of both interest and information, often coupled with open irritation toward those trying to unsettle a status quo which was not altogether disliked” (CPM-RMI: 82-83; also 78). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 556

Categorization

• XREF: State indifference to market reform is exactly the void Gambetta says the Mafia fills — but here state passivity coexists with a market that self-corrected toward competition with no mafia involvement at all.
• QUESTION: What role did licensing actually play in limiting entry, and how did the spread of licenses dissolve collusion? The interplay between formal licensing and informal enforcement is underexplored here.